Political Quotes

“This amendment is almost identical to the bill I introduced a year ago. That bill has a bipartisan group of 30 cosponsors. It is called the Due Process Guarantee Act, and the co- sponsors include five Republicans: Senators Lee, Paul, Collins, Kirk, and Moran. Thanks to Chairman Leahy, the bill had a hearing earlier this year in the Judiciary Committee, as the Presiding Officer will so note, on February 29, 2012. The amendment I will offer clarifies questions that arose during last year's defense authorization bill about the U.S. Government's power to detain its citizens indefinitely. Last year's bill had detention provisions in it that never had a hearing in the Judiciary Committee, the Intelligence Committee, or the Armed Services Committee. Let me just take a minute to describe why this is such an important issue for me. When I was a very young girl--I remember it was a Sunday because my father worked every other day of the week--my father took me down to a racetrack just south of San Francisco called Tanforan. It was the beginning of World War II. The racetrack was then a staging point for Japanese Americans en route to more permanent detention centers. Here is the edict that was put out: Western Defense Command and Fourth Army Wartime Civil Control Administration, Presidio of San Francisco, California, April 1, 1942, Instructions to All Persons of Japanese Ancestry, Living in the Following Area: Then it describes the area.…”